Postscript to Midway in My Song

Here is the Postscript that Lehmann added to her autobiography Midway in My Song. Remember that the Nazi regime had years before forbidden Lehmann to sing in the Third Reich.

Postscript May, 1938

"This book of my memoirs was written before Germany annexed Austria.

My blood is German, my whole being is rooted in the German soil. But my conception of art is different from that of my country.

I cannot serve politics. I can only serve that which always has been and still is the mission of my life. I cannot paint political boundaries on the measureless ways of the art world. I will not, and cannot probe whether the people to whom I give my art are good or bad, believers or unbelievers; nor does it interest me to what race they belong or to what politics they subscribe. I want to be an artist— nothing else. I want to live in my world which is more beautiful and loftier than all man-made countries or all states, my world of music. I want to sing the songs that I love, without questioning to what race the composer belonged. God put music into my heart and a voice into my throat. I serve Him when I serve music. I no longer understand the land of my birth.

And I who was born a German, and who was bound to Austria with the bonds of deepest love—I stand now at the door of America. I want to become an American citizen. I am sure that I shall find my third home here and that I shall not again need to wander. I want to become a good American. But that which was my beloved Homeland will live on for me in my songs."